Share thisShare

Schoolboy, 16, among 3 killed

Sixteen-year-old Kareem Forde was at his John John, Laventille home on Friday afternoon, leaning from one of their outside doors as he engaged in an online game on his phone when he began shouting, “Man coming, man coming!”

His words, his mother strongly believes, are what led to the brutal murder of her first born.

Speaking with the Sunday Guardian yesterday, Carmelita Millington said she felt the gunman thought Forde was in fact on a telephone call with someone telling the person he (the gunman) was coming towards them.

“My son had on his headphones and was playing a game with his cousin and other friends online and he began shouting. When he looked up my son saw a gun pointed in his face. He thought the gunman came to rob him of his phone and handed it to him, but instead the gunman opened fire. My son tried to run but he was shot all over his chest, belly and foot, his right hand was broken too,” Millington said.

The incident occurred at about 1 pm Friday. Forde was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries at about 5.37 am yesterday.

Forde was a Form Four South East Port-of-Spain Secondary School student and had plans of furthering his studies in Information Technology.

Millington described the crime situation in the country as “overbearing.”

“Imagine school closed for two weeks and children cannot even come outside and play. Gunmen cares about none and when the police kill them people want to come out and block the road and bawl police brutality, but gunmen do not even care about the innocent children.”

She said parents should be blamed for their children going astray and turning to a life of crime.

“Parents must start to pay more attention to their children and the friends who they keep because children tend to follow bad company. Check their school bags! Go often to the school to check up on them. I always checked up on Kareem and he never even would go to the parlour or be on the streets.”

An autopsy is carded for tomorrow at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

In a separate incident, Odel “Foots” Philbert was gunned down while talking to his mother on the phone on Friday night. It was reported that at about 10 pm Philbert, of Farm Avenue, Perseverance Village, Couva, was standing outside his house when a car pulled up and its occupant opened fire on him. Philbert was hit several times and died on the scene. He was the father of a seven-year-old daughter. Police recovered 15 spent shells. A motive is yet to be determined for his killing.

RHIANNA MCKENZIE
From the moment you enter the capital city, the Twin Towers are the most notable part of the waterfront. They may not be the sky scrapers that most foreign visitors are used to but for us, the towers...